Tennessee to roll out electronic transcripts
With 458 students to counsel in grades nine through 12, Ashley Tipton's days at Overton High School are packed.
Tipton, a high school guidance counselor, barely meets some students until they are juniors starting to think about what they will do after high school.
A new tool from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission aims to ease her workload when it comes to helping students apply to college.
The Electronic Transcript Exchange means guidance counselors can quickly submit students' transcripts to colleges, and students can track the delivery of their documents to their hopeful future school.
Troy Grant, associate executive director for THEC's Division of College Access and Success, said the system reduces counselors' time spent submitting 40 transcripts from 200 minutes to about 10.
For Tipton, one of three counselors at the school, that time saved means more attention for "the other million things I’m doing."
THEC rolled out the program to counselors this week in three information sessions across the state. A West Tennessee meeting brought about 70 counselors to Christian Brothers University on Thursday to learn the ins and outs of the new system. For participating schools, gone are the days of counselors having to individually mail a student's transcript to colleges, and students worrying about them getting lost in transit.
The state previously had an online transcript system, Grant said, but new procurement rules meant the contract had to go out for bid about a year ago. The state chose vendor National Student Clearinghouse for $441,400 for fiscal year 2017, complete with an online tracking system and an ordering option for students to submit requests for transcripts directly to their counselor.
Making applying to college easier is a small part of the state's larger mission of the Drive to 55, Gov. Bill Haslam's initiative to arm 55 percent of Tennessee residents with some sort of degree or post-secondary certificate. About half of Tennessee's high schools have signed on to use the new electronic system.
Grant said the system also makes it easier to transfer between colleges, which the state expects more students will do through the Tennessee Promise. The Promise pays for two years of community or technical college for free in exchange for community service. Students can use the Promise to earn credits to transfer to a four-year institution.
"There’s technology that’s available that we can really expedite that process, provide some inefficiencies both for the high schools and for the colleges and ease of use for the students," Grant said. "We want this to be a very easy, smooth process so this is one component of that."
Reach Jennifer Pignolet at jennifer.pignolet@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @JenPignolet.